Fog and fatigue factors in deadly fishing boat crash: TSB

The Viking Storm of Vancouver and the Maverick from of La Push, Wash., collided in Sept. 2012

The Viking Storm, a 27-metre long fishing trawler registered in Vancouver, B.C., was involved in a fatal collision in September 2012 off the coast of Washington State. (Transportation Safety Board of Canada)

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Fog, fatigue and an "unfamiliarity with safety issues" factored into a pre-dawn collision between two fishing vessels that left a Port Angeles man dead in September 2012, according to a new report from Canadian officials.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada released its findings last week into the crash between the 40-foot Maverick, home ported in La Push, and the 90-foot Viking Storm, which was operating out of Ucluelet, B.C, the Peninsula Daily News reported this week.

The vessels collided in heavy fog 55 kilometres west of La Push, a small community on the Pacific Coast of the Olympic Peninsula.

The Maverick, a 12-metre-long longline fishing boat registered in Seattle, sunk off La Push, Wash. in Sept. 2012. One man did not make it off the boat. (Transportation Safety Board of Canada)

The report said the Maverick had been drifting overnight without a crew member on lookout duty. Meanwhile, the exhausted mate of the Viking Storm "had not maintained a proper watch" and "left the wheelhouse unattended just prior to the collision."

Looking through a window in the Maverick's washroom, a deckhand noticed the other ship's lights, but they were so bright in the fog that he couldn't immediately tell how close it was. By the time he saw the wake from the Viking Storm's bow and began shouting, it was too late.

At the same time, the mate of the Viking Storm returned to the wheelhouse and noticed the Maverick about 100 feet directly ahead.

The mate slammed the main engine into full reverse and made a hard starboard turn, but within seconds, the Viking Storm T-boned the Maverick's port side. The Maverick rolled onto its starboard side and flooded.

Three of the four crew members of the Maverick abandoned the sinking vessel and were rescued by the crew of the Viking Storm crew within five minutes.

But a fourth crew member, 33-year-old Kelly Dickerson, was trapped in the Maverick. Dickerson's father, Darby Dickerson of Port Angeles, was among the three survivors.

The U.S. Coast Guard has not yet released findings on the collision. Coast Guard officials estimated that visibility was about 40 feet on the morning the accident.

The Transportation Safety Board said in its report that both vessels had radar, and that no sound signals were used by either vessel despite the heavy fog.